Abstract

This paper investigates various road pricing strategies derived from dynamic system optimal assignment. In dynamic system optimal assignment, a fixed volume of traffic is assigned to departure times and routes such that the total system travel cost is minimized. To operate the transport system optimally, each traveler in the system should pay the dynamic externality that he or she imposes on the system from the time of his or her entry. It is found that calculating such dynamic system optimal assignment and the associated optimal toll could be too difficult for practical implementation. We therefore consider some more practical tolling strategies, which include uniform and congestion-based tolling strategies. They are compared with the dynamic system optimal toll and their performances are evaluated. This paper contributes to the literature on dynamic traffic modeling and management, and to support further analysis and model development in this area.